Two Long Beach, California Men Sentenced for Participation in a Sex Trafficking Conspiracy

WASHINGTON—Roshaun Nakia Porter, 39, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Josephine L. Staton to a sentence of 240 months in prison and 10 years of supervised release for his role in a sex trafficking conspiracy, announced the Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California. Porter’s co-conspirator, Marquis Monte Horn, 40, was sentenced on Oct. 24, 2014, to serve 78 months in prison and five years of supervised release for his role in the conspiracy. Two other defendants have entered guilty pleas in connection with the case.

The judge ordered Porter to pay $866,244.68 in restitution to 10 victims of their conspiracy.

On July 11, 2014, Porter and Horn each pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to engage in sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion. According to documents filed in court and admissions in court in connection with Porter’s guilty plea, between 2010 and April 2012, Porter masterminded a scheme in which he exploited young women, including foreign nationals and U.S. citizens, in his prostitution operation in Orange County, California. Using various deceptive means, including false online personal advertisements and fraudulent promises of legitimate employment, Porter reaped substantial illicit profit by luring his victims into personal relationships with him and, thereafter, compelling them to prostitute and provide him the proceeds from their commercial sex acts. To compel the victims into compliance, Porter used physical violence, psychological abuse, threats to harm the victims’ family members and other coercive means. In connection with his guilty plea, Horn admitted that between December 2010 and April 2012, he conspired to recruit and entice victims into Porter’s prostitution ring.

“The Department of Justice is steadfast in its commitment to prosecuting those who seek to profit from enslaving and exploiting others.” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “We will continue our unrelenting work to end the scourge of human trafficking and obtain justice on behalf of victims of these heinous crimes.”

“Porter masterminded a reprehensible sex trafficking enterprise that caused extreme trauma and lasting injury to victims,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Stephanie Yonekura of the Central District of California. “Over the course of nearly two years, Porter victimized young women with flagrant lies, bogus romantic overtures and acts of violence as he forced them to give up their bodies for his profit. This conduct is intolerable and warrants the lengthy sentenced issued today by the court.”

“The defendant recruited unsuspecting victims as sex slaves through fraudulent promises of wealth and a better life,” said Assistant Director in Charge David Bowdich of the FBI Los Angeles Office. “He then held them hostage by imposing physical beatings and issuing death threats while he cashed in on their suffering. The FBI is committed to protecting the civil rights of trafficking victims by identifying violent sexual offenders and pimps operating in our communities, and building federal cases to ensure they go to prison.”

This matter was investigated by the FBI. It is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Daniel Weiss of the Civil Rights Division’s Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit and Assistant U.S. Attorney Sandy Leal of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Central District of California.